Five Years
by Nerdlydelicious
Summary: It has been five years since sergeant Loreth of the Hammerhal Freeguild had seen his daughter. As the forces of the ruinous powers close in on his isolated fortress and his death draws nearer, the veteran warrior remembers better times and grevious loss.


Five years.

That was how long it had been since he had seen his little girl, Flissa.

Sergeant Loreth of the Hammerhal twenty seventh Freeguild regiment, the red dogs of the twin tailed city, stared at the sketch in the locket around his neck. It was of a little girl, only about seven, with wild auburn hair and a freckled face split by a wide, gap toothed smile and bright green eyes. Loreth had drawn it himself, as a way to help him remember what he was fighting for.

With a sigh the sergeant shut the locket with a _click_ and tucked it under his red tunic as corporal Tomas, his aide, entered his office.

Well, technically speaking it wasn't _his_ office. It belonged to Lieutenant Hazel, as did command of the dinky little outpost they had been stationed in for almost four months now. However he was two months dead at the hands of a plague drone, and so the office and command of the outpost fell to Loreth as the highest ranking member of the Guard left alive.

the corporal saluted his sergeant, his back ramrod straight and the heels of his boots snapped together with a _clack_ that would not have been out of place on a parade ground. Tomas was the son of a minor noble or a rich Hammerhal merchant, or something like that, and could have used his family's connections and money to buy a commission as a lieutenant, but had insisted on joining the Freeguild Guard as a private and working his way up the chain of command. That decision alone was enough to make Loreth like the boy far more than any noble fop he'd ever served under, including the late Hazel. The boy was eager to please and worked diligently to keep his kit pristine, no small feat in the wild lands of Ghyran, especially when considering what they were up against.

Loreth sighed and waved his hand absently. "At ease, corporal. Sigmar's oath, there's only fifty of us left, so there's hardly any point in standing on ceremony."

Tomas lowered his arm. His back remained as straight as ever, however. "Report from the sentries, sergeant."

Loreth suppressed a sigh of irritation. "Go on then."

"The men report very little activity in the surrounding forest. There's been sporadic movement, the occasional cultist popping its damned head out of the undergrowth, but no more than that."

Loreth frowned. For the past three days the Nurglite cultists that had been besieging their little outpost had been quiet. It should have relieved the sergeant. The quiet days had allowed what remained of the garrison to repair damage to the outer walls and for the wounded to recover, those that hadn't died to the innumerable contagions that the nurglites seeped their blades in, and generally prepare for the next attack, but the silence was unnerving. It wasn't like the heretical servants of the Ruinous Powers, damned be their names, to just stop attacking. Heretics and traitors they were to a man, but they were bloody minded and determined heretics and traitors.

Loreth didn't doubt that the corrupted souls that had been besieging them were up to something, but what could he do about it? The outpost was designed to operate with a minimum garrison of one hundred and fifty men, and between the constant assaults and the poisoning of their food and water Loreth had only a third of that minimum contingent available to him, and they were all stretched thin trying to keep the outpost in operating order and stopping the defenses from crumbling due to the eldritch rot that ate away at them. He didn't have the man power to mount an expedition to figure out what the enemy was doing out there in the blighted forest, let alone put a stop to it.

The only thing that had stopped the enemy from just sweeping over them like a steam tank over an ant hill was the outpost's cannons, and now he only had enough trained men to crew three of them. Once the foe figured that out, it would be all over for them. Loreth just hoped that his requests for reinforcement and resupply were answered before then.

The Freeguild sergeant allowed himself a wry, humorless chuckle at that thought. There would be no help coming. Carrier pigeon after carrier pigeon had been sent out to Hammerhal, but no response had returned. Whether the enemy had intercepted them or they were simply being ignored didn't matter. No one had time to spare for a tiny, undermanned outpost on the fringes of civilized territory.

Loreth realized that Tomas was still standing there, back ramrod straight as ever. He sighed a bit. "Anything else, corporal?"

the lad shook his head. "No sir."

The sergeant nodded. "You're dismissed-"

A high pitched shrilling sounded in the distance. Loreth recognized it as a sentry blowing hard on his whistle. The Freeguilder's hand instinctively darted to the hilt of his sword strapped to his waist as he leapt out of his chair and darted to the office's open window.

What he saw chilled his blood.

"Sigmar's oath," he whispered in horror.

A roiling cloud of noxious green fog was sweeping out of the forest and towards the outpost. The wall sentries were abandoning their posts, making for whatever cover they could find from the sorcerous cloud moving towards them far faster than any natural phenomena should have been capable of. Loreth knew they wouldn't make it to safety in time.

The sergeant slammed the heavy wooden shutters shut and spun around. He grabbed the stunned Corporal Tomas by the arm and dragged him after him. "Allarielle's bosom man, run!" He snarled at the corporal as he dragged him out the door.

"Sir, the shutters!" The boy screamed.

Against his better judgement Loreth turned and looked. The shutters, made of thick strong oak tough enough to take a shot from a handgun, were rapidly rotting away. In the two seconds Loreth stared at the shutters in horror they began to fall away, and wisps of noxious green fog began seeping in.

" _Run!_ " He tugged Tomas after him, and this time the young man did as he was told. The two darted out of the room and sprinted down the hall. Loreth's own whistle was in his hand, and he alternated between blowing hard on it and screaming, "GAS GAS GAS" at the top of his lungs. Loreth didn't stop to look behind them. He knew the fog was right on their heels.

As they rounded a corner Tomas's foot caught and he tripped, falling on his face. Loreth skidded to a halt and hauled the boy up. "Keep going!" He cried. As he did so, he looked up-

Just in time to see the green fog sweep over the two Freeguilders.

* * *

"Daddy, you'll come back, right?" Seven year old Flissa stared at him with wide green eyes set over a button nose, which were usually alight with mirth. Now they were filled with worry.

Loreth scooped his little girl up in one big arm. "Ah now, are you doubting your father?" he asked her, with false gruffness. He ruffled her already messy auburn hair and growled. "Yer dad eats nails for breakfast and chews on rocks as a light snack. No sorry heretic is gonna put your old man down. Two years tops, and I'll be back."

Flissa was Loreth's whole world. No one mattered to him near as much as she did. The girl's mother was a drunken bitch, and as soon as Flissa had been old enough to no longer require feeding from the teat Loreth had kicked her out of the house to fend for herself, and hadn't regretted it one bit. Sure raising a daughter without a wife wasn't the easiest, but he'd had help from the rest of the village.

But it was because Flissa was his world that he had to leave. The faithless servants of the dark powers were growing more active in his neck of the woods, and Hammerhal was raising more regiments to drive them back. Loreth had signed up with the Red Dogs regiment for a two year contract, and heavy fighting was expected. The papers were claiming that the heretics would be dealt with quickly, but Loreth knew better than to believe that.

"Your dad's going to be just fine little one." Glynda said as she waddled over. "Now come to grandma, your father has to go."

Reluctamtly Loreth handed Flissa over to Glynda. She wasn't actually related to Loreth or Flissa, but the old woman didn't have any family of her own, and she'd been a life saver for Loreth, teaching him everything he needed to know to take care of his little girl. He couldn't have asked for a better person to be Flissa's grandmother. "You listen to Gran now, you hear?" He grunted, trying to fight back the tears that threatened to fall.

She smiled at him, that special, wide mouth gap toothed grin that Loreth lived for. "Yes papa."

He grinned and ruffled her hair again. "That's my girl."

Before he could pull it away Flissa's gangly arms reached out and wrapped around his own arm. "I love you papa."

Lips trembling under his bushy beard, Loreth wrapped his free arm around his little girl. "Papa loves you too, button."

Loreth wouldn't allow himself to cry until he was well outside the little hamlet he called home.

* * *

Two Years.

Two years away from home, away from Flissa, and his heart had ached on every single one of those days for his daughter, but finally, _finally_ the wait was over.

Corporal Loreth straightened his helmet and resisted the urge to take it off and check the horse hair plume on top of it for what would have had to be the millionth time as he trekked down the familiar path that would lead to his home. His armor was polished to a mirror sheen, and his crimson breeches and tunic were pressed and cleaned, worthy of the parade ground. His sword and shield had been given the same treatment as his armor. Sigmar damn him if he wasn't going to go to every length he could to ensure that he looked his best for his little girl after being away from her for so long. The Freeguilder pulled the locket that held the picture of his daughter in it and ran a finger on the edge of the locket. "Not much longer now, Button," he whispered.

In the two years since Loreth's enlistment he'd seen more battles than he'd ever thought possible against the disgusting plague worshipers of Nurgle. It had only been by the grace of Sigmar and Allarielle that he hadn't fallen prey to the countless diseases of the plague god like so many of his fellows. When one was wounded by one of the Nurglite cultists, or worse, one of his daemons, death was virtually assured if the priests couldn't get to you in time. Even if they did there was no guarantee their benedictions would save you. The Red Dogs had suffered heavily in the war, but the servants of the dark powers had suffered worse and had been driven back by black powder, faith, steel, and courage. Now the front lines were many, many miles distant, and his little home and his little daughter were safe, and that was all Loreth could hope for.

The Freeguilder halted and stiffened, his hand moving to his sword out of habit. There was a scent of spoiled meat and fruits, a pungent aroma that gave a man the urge to gag from the smallest whiff of it.

It was the smell of rot.

"No," he hissed as he drew his sword and sprinted down the path, armor rattling as he ran for all he was worth, "no no no please Sigmar, _no_."

But in his heart Loreth knew what he would see when he rounded the corner the bend of the path and his eyes fell on his little hamlet.

The front gate, made of sturdy oak, had rotted away to pulp and lay open. Pale shapes hung from the rotten and molded walls, and Loreth knew from bitter experience what those shapes would be even before they came into clear view as corpses.

His breath hitched in his throat when he recognized the now bloated form of Glynda. Disease had eaten away at her corpse, her belly torn open and red, pus leaking entrails hanging out. "No no no no no no NO NO NO NO!" he screamed as he sprinted into the town, desperately searching for any sign, anything, of anyone who was still alive. "Flissa?!" he yelled as he skidded to a halt in the center of the town square. Once there had been a crude but proud statue of the God King in the center of the square holding his hammer high. Now it was a crumbled ruin, overgrown with mold and defiled with symbols of Nurgle, painted with grotesque bodily fluids. "FLISSA!" he howled in anguish.

Behind him, a door creaked open on rusty hinges.

"Papa?"

He turned, hope blooming in his chest. "Button?"

What he saw crushed that hope.

Flissa, his little girl stood before him on legs that had once been skinny, but were now anorexic and covered in blisters and pustules, just like the rest of her. Her clothes were stained and dirty and hung off of her spare, wasted form. Her hair, once a vibrant red, was so stained and matted with filth that it was a muddy brown. She tottered forward on weak, wasting legs. "Papa?" Her legs gave out and she collapsed to the ground, once hard packed dirt, now a mire of mud and offal.

Loreth's sword and shield slipped out of his grasp forgotten as he ran to his daughter and skidded to his knees next to her. He scooped her up into his trembling arms. She'd always been on the light side, but now she was so wasted he could see her ribs through her stained shirt. _"Sigmar, Allarielle, please don't let this be happening, don't let this be real,"_ he begged in his mind as he cradled his dying daughter in his arms. "Hold on Button," he said as he got to his feet, "it's all going to be okay. Daddy's going to take you to the priests and you're going to be alright."

"They came," she whispered, her voice weak and withered where it had once been bright and lively. "Grandma hid me, and they didn't find me, but I got sick." She coughed, her frail, ravaged frame rattling. Specks of blood flecked her lips and a crimson line dribbled out of the corner of her mouth.

"No, don't talk baby," he said as he got to his feet, tears falling freely down his cheeks and into his thick red beard, "save your energy, daddy's going to take care of you."

"P-papa," she coughed again, a rattling, hacking thing that made the crimson line wider and flow harder. "Papa," she whimpered, "I'm scared."

"Don't be scared," he sobbed as he made for the gate, the thick quagmire of mud sucking and pulling at his boots as though it were trying to stop him. "Daddy's got you Button, daddy's going to take care of you."

She didn't respond.

"Button?" He looked down through tear clouded eyes at his little girl, so frail and vulnerable in his arms. "Flissa?" He shook her lightly. Her head lolled to the side lifelessly. Her green eyes, once so bright and happy, were clouded and glassy, the light gone from them.

Loreth, sank to his knees. "Flissa?" He whimpered, shaking her harder. She didn't move.

"No," he sobbed as he pressed her head into the crook of his neck, "oh gods, _no_." His body shook with grief. "Flissa," he sobbed her name again, over and over, as his seven year old daughter grew cold in his arms.

"FLISSA!" he screamed into the sky as grief overtook him.

* * *

Loreth's eyes opened slowly and reluctantly.

He could feel contagion running rampant through his body, eating him alive from the inside out. It should have killed him by now. He looked back, and saw the lifeless corpse of Tomas already rotting into a disgusting state of liquification. Loreth knew he should have been in the same state, not breathing and clinging doggedly to life.

But the fury kept him going.

It had been five years since he'd last seen his daughter.

Fiver years since the Nurglite cultists had murdered her, five years since he'd watched his daughter die to disease in his arms, helpless to do anything about it.

And in those five years the rage had _never_ faded.

A hand reached out and clawed at the stone wall of the outpost and found purchase. Loreth gripped tight and hauled himself to his feet through force of will alone. His ravaged body screamed out in protest but he ignored it. He was a dead man, but he'd drag as many of the worthless sons of bitches that had taken his daughter from him down into hell with him as he could before he went.

The sergeant stumbled through the hall, leaning against the wall for support, the name of his daughter on his lips. "Flissa, Flissa, Flissa..."

As he uttered it over and over strength through rage filled him and Loreth got fully to his feet as his vision went red. He marched out of the main keep empty handed, his sword and shield having rusted away to nothing in the fog. Through his rage he saw the corpse of Brother Titus laying in a pool of its own blood. The Warrior Priest's hammers were untouched by the rot, and their Sigmarite heads gleamed as brightly as ever. The Freeguilder bent down and scooped them up in each hand. They were heavy. Heavy with the promise of death.

Loreth gritted bloodstained teeth as the massive wooden gates of the outpost, still standing but rotted through, shuddered and splintered as something heavy slammed into it on the other side.

"Come on," he snarled as he clashed the Sigmarite hammers together, "I'm going to take as many of you sorry bastards with me as I can before I go."

With a mighty crash the gates burst apart, and a horde of grotesquely mutated and diseased mad men boiled through, gurgling praises and benedictions to their plague god.

Loreth surged towards them, his own wild war cry drowning out their droning phlegmatic chants with its fury. "FLISSA!" He roared as he _slammed_ into their mass, hammers swinging left and right in silver, slaughtering arcs. The cultists recoiled, clearly not expecting any resistance to have survived the fog. With each swing of his hammers a panicked cultist died, and with each swing of his hammers Loreth howled the name of his daughter in anguish and fury.

"FLISSA!"

A Nurglite's head was smashed apart as a hammer slammed into it.

"FLISSA!"

Another stumbled back and collapsed, his rib cage smashed open with a single blow.

"FLISSA!"

With three sickeningly wet _crunches_ a third was beaten to pulp in as many seconds under Loreth's fury.

"FLISSAAAAAAAAA!"

Two more fell, the twin hammers smashing through their shoulders and deep into their chests before the sergeant ripped them out in twin welters of brackish blood and pox ridden flesh.

The others backed away, terror and horror in their rheumy eyes, as Loreth spun in a circle, waiting for one of them to grow a spine and try his sorry luck. He was soaked in diseased gore and offal, his hair and beard matted with the stuff and what was left of his armor painted with gore. Loreth bled from no small number of cuts he'd recieved in the melee, and he could feel innumerable diseases working their way deeper into him, but pure undiluted fury kept him going just as strong as he had been when he should have expired by now.

"Come on you bastards," he roared hoarsely, "come on! By Sigmar and Allarielle, I'll crush your skulls and stave in your chests until these hammers break, and then I'll tear you apart with my bare hands! Come on!" he slammed the twin hammers together. A resonating clang like that of a church bell swept out, and the Nurglites backed up even further in terror at the sound. "Come on! Come and try your _fucking luck_!"

A figure walked through the cultists and traitors, his bloated and distended body pushing anyone out of the way who didn't move quickly enough. The figure was massive, easily heads and shoulders above the tallest cultist and clutching a massive rust pocked axe in his hands. His face was hidden behind a three eyed visor that had a single horn jutting out of it.

The Blight King hefted his axe onto one shoulder and pointed at Loreth with his free hand. "Your soul will fertilize the garden of Father Nurgle," he droned, his voice thick and wet.

"There's only one father here," Loreth hissed, fury blazing in his eyes, "and you bastards _murdered his daughter_."

There could be no happiness, no joy in the world with his daughter gone. There was only war and vengeance. He would kill the servants of the dark powers again and again until the Mortal Realms were cleansed, until there was nothing left to fight, until no father would ever have to cradle his dying daughter in his arms again.

Loreth threw himself at the blight king, his daughter's name on his lips as a savage war cry.

* * *

He still remembered.

It had been a century at the least, and he had been reforged _so many_ times, but he still remembered.

He could never forget.

Her once bright eyes, glassy and lifeless. Her bright red hair matted and stained with filth. Her frail frame cradled in his arms as life bled out of her, stolen by a god of disease.

Her last words to him.

 _"Papa, I'm scared."_

Loranthian the Fury Blade, Liberator Prime of the Celestial Vindicators, snarled litanies of rage and hymms of hate along with his brothers and sisters to focus and control his fury as they marched forward. Soon the time would come to vent his fury upon the foe. Soon he would spill the blood of the heretic and the traitor.

Across the barren lightning scoured plateau an army of the corrupted advanced in a formless horde, screaming and howling mad worship to obscene gods who deserved none of it. Loranthian grit his teeth as the urge to break ranks and surge across the open plain towards the foe threatened to overwhelm him, but he contained it. Barely. All along the line of Celestial Vindicators he knew that many others fought the same battle of wills against their unbridled fury, only extensive training and the focus their chanting and singing gave them keeping them in line.

With a single massive _thud_ of over a thousand armored feet coming to a halt at once, the turquoise host stood in a perfect line.

All at once, they fell silent.

Across the plain the diseased horde ceased their droning chant and clumsily stumbled to a halt, unnerved by their foe's sudden silence and stillness.

Lord Celestant Goryus walked ten paces ahead of his Chamber, the Skull Splitters, and stopped. He said nothing. He did not move. He simply stood there, staring at the enemy horde through the falsely neutral face of his war mask.

"Are you ready?" The man next to Loranthian growled, his voice rolling like thunder.

Loranthian looked at the turquoise armored Stormcast next to him, a large warrior wielding a wickedly sharp Thunderaxe in his hands with a bear pelt cloak fastened around his neck. "Of course," he snarled, his voice the crack of lighting.

Arellius Throat Ripper, Decimator Prime, shook with barely contained rage, just as they all did. Just as Loranthian did.

The Liberator Prime turned back to the front just as Lord Celestant Goryus raised his runeblade into the sky and _roared._

The sound increased a thousand fold as every Celestial Vindicator screamed their hatred at the foe, who stumbled back as though physically struck by the force of their rage.

They could not be contained any longer, _he_ could not be contained any longer. Loranthian sprinted forward as the Stormcast to his left, right, and behind him did the same in a furious wave of vengeance, screaming oaths of vengeance and the war cry of their legion: _"Vengeance! Vengeance for Sigmar!"_

The scorched ground cracked under Loranthian's armored feet as he surged forward howling madly, his twin warblades glinting with lightning and the promise of death for his enemies. So great was his fury and desire to close with the enemy that he began to outpace the rest of his chamber, even charging ahead of the Lord Celestant.

As he rapidly closed the gap between himself and the Nurglites the daemons and marauders closest to him began backing away frantically with terror in their eyes, the line bowing in a desperate attempt to escape him.

It wouldn't save them.

Loranthian slammed into the plague worshipers with his twin lighting wreathed blades whirling and slashing and a war cry on his lips. It had been his war cry for over a century. It would be his war cry until the Mortal Realms were purged of the taint of Chaos, and the dark gods themselves were cast down and their realms laid to waste.

"FLISSA!"

* * *

 **Fun fact: this is my first piece of writing on this site that isn't related to RWBY.**

 **I had this idea awhile back and it was just one of those things that refused to leave me alone until I had put it down on paper (metaphorically, at least, since I wrote it on a computer) and I gotta say I thought I did a good job.**

 **For anyone who's wondering this will just be a one shot, so there won't be a second chapter. But hey, maybe Loranthian will show up in a later story, perhaps another one shot, or maybe he'll make an appearance in a current story... hm, its a mystery...**

 **Also, kinda weird that I took the time to describe a big, angry, axe wielding warrior who wears a bear pelt when he's not the main character and only has a single line of dialogue, isn't it? Maybe its just a fluke on my part, or maybe he's intentionally very similar to a main character of another story I worked on a long time ago... hm, who can say? (for real though, if anyone can guess who Arellius is from one of my older stories (hint: it's not up anymore) they get an imaginary cookie! Once again, I have eaten all the real ones. My bad. I'm not sorry.)**

 **But of course, my opinion is rather biased in my favor. What did you think, dear reader? Leave any thoughts, comments, or suggestions you have in a review or PM, and feel free to tell anyone you know about this work of mine who's into Age Of Sigmar, Age of Sigmar fanfictions, or who you think would just like this story! I love you all. BYYYYYYYEEEEE!**


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